Glorious Mabon

Glorious Mabon

Begins Friday - September 21 and ends on Saturday- September 29

Mabon is a Welsh story that speaks to the dying of the Father of Harvest and the celebration of the rise of the Goddess.  There is a lovely story to share

http://meadowsweet-myrrh.blogspot.com/2009/09/tale-of-mabon-bedtime-story.html

For the second time, day and night, dark and light, masculine and feminine, inner and outer are all in balance.  The Sun is waning and the sap of trees returns deeper into the roots of trees.  The flaming reds, oranges and yellows begin to dance.  It is a very symbolic time. 

The cornucopia, represents the horn of plenty, the abundance of harvest, the horn the balance of the phallic male and hollow female. The apple is symbolic of harvesting fruit. It reminds us of beauty, long life and healing and regeneration.  Many would slice the apple into a disk, cutting through the sides, and the symbol that shows with the seeds and the covering of the seeds takes the shape of a circle, and was believed to be made into an amulet, to be worn, to protect from dark night evils.  As well, they would hang these apple disk near doors and windows to guard the entrances of the homes for the same reasons. 

Mabon, the second harvest before winter sets in reminds us to be grateful for what we have had, in bounty, since spring seeding.  We prepare for the barrenness of cold soon to come:  physically, intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually.

Physically - Sharing of full family meals in dominant, using as many seasonal fresh vegetables as possible. Going out in nature and collecting colors and leaves and enjoying Mother Nature before she puts on her winter coat, is a great way to physically enjoy Mabon.  Using fall fragrances to purify the house; cinnamon, apple cider boiling on the stove for evenings repast is a great way to cleanse the house. 

Intellectually - Gather up a list of good books to read since you have earned it and it will help you bide away the long nights to come.  Find a great on-line course or class you would like to take.

Emotionally - This is a good time to set some personal emotional goals, fall cleaning of home and self.  Find some wonderful meditations, or meditational music, to carry you through.  For those of you who enjoy the tarot or animal readings, this is good time to do a few simple researches to give you guidance.  Spending time to work on some things that have clung on since last winter, is a good thing an it is a good time to do so.  It is a good time to do your Fall Altar in honor of Mabon.  Use the colors and symbols of Mabon.  Stack some corn husks near your door, outside.  Put some wheat sheaves inside.  This is a time of gratitude and reflection.  Be willing to seek out your shadow areas and cleanse them as well. 

Spiritually - After purifying/cleansing your house and heart, it would be good for you set those negativities from smudge and however you symbolically get rid of your negatives (writing, drawing, etc., into the making of a scarecrow and setting it outside.  After cleansing, you can go tie prayer ribbons on some trees near you (or bushes).  Plant some bulbs ( iek garlic and shrubs and seeds that need to germinate through winter, so you can display your hopes, intentions, and dreams.
There are some awesome fall recipes.  Make some apple cakes and pies.  Honor your seasonal gathering in this way.  I made artisan bread and it was magnificent.  I will be making this throughout winter. 
http://www.thecomfortofcooking.com/2013/04/no-knead-crusty-artisan-bread.html
Enjoy your Mabon by sharing with others...  Blessed Be!
©Carol Desjarlais September 19, 2018

Sept 24, 2018

And tonight is the harvest moon that will carry a great deal of cosmic energy.  Whatever you have been working on, tonight is the night to ask the Universe to help manifest it in your life.  We have karma to work on as well.  That which has been on our minds to work on, may have been finding that you felt stalled by whatever reason.  I certainly have.  And nothing comes without hard work.  Our shadow side could be huge this night.  Work within it.  Work within the dark dreams.  Find the pathway through to the light.  As full as the moon is tonight, there is equal shadow and light.  Find the light. 
Light your sage, or whatever you smudge with, for these two nights of this full moon's influence at its greatest.  This moon may bring up some painful memories.  Yes, that shadow thing.  Embrace them and let them go.  Clear the hearth, so to speak.  We have much to be grateful for.
This is a challenging few months for me and I am not through it yet.  But, I have a new great granddaughter...and she is a beauty.  And, Margaret Lenore has a new granddaughter, and she is a beauty too.  We are lucky women, crones, we are.  Life is tough and then she hands us these precious two. 
The angst we may feel is coming to a head and we need to merely get through it by acknowledging the angst and finding the key within us and then making sure we shed the negatives of yesterday and walk into the joy of tomorrow.  This Full moon is a promise of things in balance, if we choose it.  We can see the dark or we can see the full smiling face of the grandmother.
We are moving towards the next season, in a hurry.  It is going to be the hungry and cold moons. Have we strengthened ourselves to see it through?  Use your spiritual energy.  It is yours.  You own it.  Now, own it.  Get through whatever it is you are getting through and be grateful..oh, yes, be grateful, for it will have us rise to a higher spiritual level if we do.  I cannot stand winter and cold and winter hard times.  I am not looking forward to this winter.  But, I will plug along, as I always do, and try to stay positive and get through whatever comes.  How about you?  Will you walk with me?

©Carol Desjarlais 9.24.18

Page 8 - 9 MyStory - The Triple Goddess In Our Lives

Page eight shows the relationship between being The Maiden, The Mother, and The Crone.  I added bits and bobs I had done on previous pages elsewhere.  I, then, tried the pulled-string technique to get the symbolic representation of each. As well, I made the stamp and printed it in blue.

String Art Youtube:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcBV0B3TwdE

I found an art piece that suited each one, from older paintings, and have added them on page 9.   I added a jigsaw puzzle piece I had done separate to this book.  Above each stage of being woman, I have written how it applies to me.

More reading on the Triple Goddess:

https://blackwolfsiren.com/blogs/news-1/understanding-the-triple-goddess-symbol

How does your life fit into each of these categories?  Can you express it by creating a page or two on such?

©Carol Desjarlais 9.3.2018

MY-STORY

This is going to be an interesting few months of challenges.  I have started a 17 x 12 "book using Mixed Media.  I am calling it "My-Story".  I want to leave it as legacy.  It is like an art journal, but focused on things that interest and are about the Inner Me.  It includes pages of zodiacs, moons, animal symbolism, empowering pages, and when I get the main things done, I will be sharing an art journaling page per week.  As well, there will be other artist activities such as:  I will show you how to make your own empowerment deck of cards so you can draw and focus on one of the empowerment cards.  I will show you how to carve your own stamps out of fun foam to go along with your-story.  I will focus on a section for each week and a new technique.  It will be mixed media so anything goes.  So collect your goodies that you think you might add.  Decide on a color scheme or thematic scheme you hope to choose for YOUR-STORY. 

Birds on a Path

"It takes

So many thousands of years to wake,

but will you wake for pity's sake...?"

-Christopher Fry, "A Sleep of Prisoners

I am pretty sure that our main purpose is to bring life to life.  We walk a solitary path towards  really, nothing more than more.  The treasure at the end of every rainbow is ourselves and being fully aware and fully Self at the end of this part of our walk.  Along our walk, we will find many little side places to wander, it is our choices of what we wish in our life as for who we become, moment to moment; what we feel and think;  what we belief is true and worthy; what we value and what we stand for.  These are the things that make us who we truly are and why we are truly here.  We are called to change every moment and in that change is growth and brings us closer to purpose. 

It takes courage to walk this walk.  With a final goal of being 'at home' and we have been building and decorating that home every day we breathe.  We are where we are because we were.  We have been ill, we have been abandoned, we have been disappointed, we have been betrayed, we have been failures, and we have been courageous enough to continue to walk through the storms.  We have, and should be, always confronting the difficulties of life down here one earth.  We have borne much and will continue to bear much.  Having a true sense of self, a balanced Self, has helped us get through it...even things we thought we could not bear.

We have learned to trust, and sometimes the hard way.  We have learned what to fear people, places and things; in nature, in people, yet we have regained our footing and have had to need to trust again.  We have learned to love ourselves more deeply through it all.  We have had moments where we were walking in shadow and those beautiful moments of being bathed in the loving light of beautiful energy around us.  We have known when to leave a path that does not fit us.  We have learned to walk forwards and to retrace our steps.  We have, and are, always learning to love ourselves...moment to moment because life changes so quickly.  Sometimes we have wandered on paths that did not suit who we truly are.  We have learned to let go, to fight the pull one way, and gone another way, when necessary.

We may circle around and around, building more faith in Self, more Love in self.  Sometimes we have had to go back through some mighty huge piles of deadfall and worked our way through that, as well.   We have lost and loved again.  We have come to know we cannot do it all and that we might do bits and pieces, but, eventually, we do get the whole of growth that is necessary for us to be of good to the world.  We have discarded what does not fit our soul and kept those things that are worthy of being kept by us.

We have muddled through our fears and doubts.  We have attempted to harden our shells.  But, in the end, the walk only becomes more arduous, if we are carrying such loads.  We learn to be hard, or we learn to open our hearts so our soul might be gentle and soft and welcoming and caring and compassionate to others on their own solitary walks.  In the end, it is, indeed, a solitary walk, but it is never all about us.  It is about how we affect others, how we are able to make this life as much a heaven as possible for others.  It is, in our discomfort, that we find our peace and then we give out that peace that affects the very ether.

The whole of life is a walk of trust.  Everything happens for a reason, and we must trust that.  We will walk a while holding on to others, but, always, there is a leaving.  Always, there is that length of walk that is solitary, as it should be.  You can make it a lovely journey or a lonely journey.  If it is lonely, it means that you are abandoning yourself and your true path.  There are many on such paths as we, we find each other.  We walk a time together and encourage each other.  We may walk a while with those who disrupt our path.  We know some are walking before us.  We know some are walking behind us.  The best way to walk is side by side; each on our own paths, but near enough to cheer and encourage. 

Let us be that sweet singing bird on other's paths.  Let us be that beautiful voice in the forest of feelings these walks are, for each other.

©Carol Desjarlais 9.3.18

The Revolution Of Magical Thinking

"You cannot make the Revolution; you can only BE the revolution. - Ursula Le Grin, The Dispossessed

There are so many levels of authenticity that it takes a lifetime to reach the deepest truths.  We begin life with magical thinking of children.  But society curbed that awe and forced us to think more logically.  We lost so much potential for magical moments and grace of seeing magical thinking come true.

I was raised with a handicapped older step-sister.  She always talked to the radio.  One day, she asked the radio announcer to tell her what the weather was going to be.  Just happened, the announcer said, "And what will the weather be?" and, then told us.  Well, she looked like she had seen God.  She believed the radio was talking to just her; and it answered.  The look of satisfaction on her face was a bit, I told you so, and a bit of awe.  I reflect on times that were magical to me.  When did I lose that awesome belief?  When did you?

Yes, we had to learn to figure out fact from fiction, and yet, our bedtime stories were full of magical thinking.  We needed to know who and what and where to trust, and who and where and why not too.  Perhap0s the extinguishing of the magical was being extinguished just then.  Can we go back to believing such is true until proven else wise? 

Then there are our personal truths.  How often have we heard, "it did not happen like that.. no, that isn't true.." when we tell our truths?  Look, I know, sometimes, it is easier to belief the fantasy than to believe the fact:  For instance, when we are in pain, when we have had a sudden shock, when we are grieving.  Our truth is our truth.  None should minimize it ( especially us) and none should question what we say, that is down deep and rising from a place of wound.  How many of our truths have we changed to fiction or fantasy or half-truths because others have minimized it, or we have because it is expected of us to do so? 

What if we dug deep into our souls and excavated the authentic truths of what happened to us on our journey here on earth.  Our own ego/brains have, perhaps, and most likely, caused memory of that event to fit our belief system rather than it be the whole truth and nothing but the truth.  We have all played the memory game and the "whisper" game.  We all have our shadows.  We all envisioned something different than what happened.   But, in there somewhere is the innocent child who still believes in good, without fantasy, hope in the midst of a grind, faith in oneself as being magical.

How do we define our lives:  fact or fiction?  Is our story about what really happened or what we wished happened?  Does our thinking evolve from scarcity, from fear, from poverty of mind body and soul?  Does our belief rise from loneliness, from ugliness, from negative thinking, or fantastical thinking?  Does our story evolve from love given and received, from beauty in all things or just things we wished to be beautiful and so we saw it?  Does our thinking rise from gratitude?  Does our thinking and remembering break through because we had supportive friends and family, or did we let old grievances hold us back and make us bitter?  How many family and friends have fallen by the wayside and we let that happen?  Did our grace and dignity have us rise above such things and help those we felt abandon us be attracted back to us?  Are we stuck in thinking that comes from religion(s), from primitive ego, from patriarchal, from linear thinking? 

How can we help our whole story be magical in what we gained, what we learned, and what we changed to the positive in some way?  How can we place our story in a setting of peace, joy, and serenity?  How can we open our hearts so fully that the child appears with its full belief that anything was possible?  So fully that we remember our childhood ability to forgive Self and others.  The world has need of such.

Come sister-friends, let us find a way to make our whole story be full of magical thinking, positivity, peace, gratitude and service.  That is what counts.  That is what will draw good people to us.  That will be what attracts us once we get through our story and figure out the lessons and the blessings.  Think magical.  This can be our own little revolution.

xoxoxoxoxo

September 1, 

2018